Strong Mayor Initiative Gets Enough Signatures, But ...

The conversation about whether Tacoma has a strong mayor or a council/manager just got a bit more complicated. The group putting forward the initiative to change the City of Tacoma to a strong mayor form of government has confirmed that enough signatures have been received.

The proposal would amend Tacoma's Charter, removing the City Manager position, and more or less replacing it with a stronger mayor position as the head of City government. This would put the mayor in charge of day-to-day operations at the City. The proposal would also reduce the number of council members from eight to seven, eliminating the at-large position currently held by Councilmember Woodards, who is due to reach the end of her term in 2017. Term limits would also change slightly under the proposal - from the current 10-year maximum to a flat two four-year terms.

That said, there's a wee bit of a catch.

The copy of the charter used with the petition also struck out the entire "Powers of the People" section. At first we thought, this must be housecleaning. The rules enabling Tacoma's citizen to vote on amendments to the charter submitted by the City Council or via initiative must be somewhere else in law. Except, it isn't. 

According to people within the organization, the Charter used for the petition was a draft copy from the Charter Review process in 2014. The Powers of the People had been struck by the Charter Review Committee in order for it to be added in a new section of the document. However, the version submitted with the strong mayor proposal does not have that addition. While not intentional, this now creates a problem for the initiative. The group isn't trying to remove the ability of the people to change the Charter. They have met with the city attorney to try and fix it via Council action or ... anything else that works. Where it goes from here will be interesting. 

Do you want to read the charter as proposed?

DOWNLOAD IT HERE (pdf)

It's readable with zoom set at 400%.